A Full Plate

I admit. I'm getting more than a little nervous. Unemployment is still rising, the markets are still rolling around, we are borrowing 50 cents of every dollar we spend and our government is STILL trying to ram more spending projects....BIG SPENDING PROJECTS...down our throats. In a recent interview with CNN, Colin Powell has also expressed concerns with President Obama's spending agenda. He has cautioned the administration against taking on too many things that we can't afford while debt is piling up. He believes "We can't absorb it all". Powell has asked the administration to take a hard look at the cost of Obama's initiatives and determine if the effectiveness justifies the cost. Here are a few more things I wish the President would apply that same effectiveness vs. cost analysis to:

1. His first executive order as President: Shutting Gitmo down. I'm willing to spend the money to keep this baby afloat. Where are all of these prisoners going to go? Obviously, my backyard since Senator Murtha is one of my go-to-guys. It was just in the news, a few days ago, a recently released detainee has resumed his place in the al Qaeda network and is working on opposing US lead campaigns yet again. The costs are high and the prison is set to close in 6 months. Feeling any less nervous yet?

2. The Stimulus Plan: As of the first of the month, less than 10% of this alloted money has been spend. Really? How is it that a second stimulus plan is already being talked about? Our Country is facing mounting national debt that has never been heard of before and is looking at a multi-trillion dollar budget. Joe Biden remarked earlier in the week that perhaps they had underestimated how badly damaged the economy was. And he thinks a second stimulus bill is going to fix it? He better hope China likes to throw buckets of money away on his crap shoots.

3. Cap and Trade: Obama is looking to overhaul our whole energy systems through a carbon tax. When has new taxes ever achieved it's intended goal? I've said this before and I'll say it again....cap and trade is going to kill jobs, business, and industry. It's going to chip away at the poor and middle class who will not be able to afford their energy costs. I'm all for developing new innovations and new sources of power but let's not limit ourselves. Let's use everything that is on the table...wind, solar, natural gas, oil, coal, nuclear, etc. Let the markets push the agenda and not the lawmakers in Washington, DC that would like to dictate our lifestyle to us.

4. Universal Healthcare: We already have a universal healthcare system in our Country that doesn't work....Medicare and Medicaid. We simply can not afford to keep saddling the average taxpayer with more entitlement programs that are mishandled. Why has the government been recommended for the job when they clearly do not have the resume for it. What else can I say about this initiative that hasn't been said already?

What about you? What has gotten the hairs on your arms standing on end in the past 6 months? I am proud to say that between our blogspot and Facebook followers, we are almost 70 strong and growing by the week. Keep introducing friends to The Rising Patriot....you never know where the next great idea may come from.